CHAPTER ONE
The first time it happens, I feel as if I am dying. My body and mind are suffocating. I am alone with no hope of escape.
It starts with a story in the newspaper.
I’m on autopilot and half asleep as I sit at the breakfast table and pick at my maple oatmeal. Dad slouches across from me, unshowered and still wearing his housecoat. He drags his fingers through his mat of salt-and-pepper hair and rubs his unshaven face.
At his end of our well-loved oak table, he has neatly stacked piles of newspaper sections. I sift through the only messy heap, the outcasts, and find the section of Ridgefield Local News. He glances up from the Toronto Financials and shoots me some serious cut-eye.
Eyebrows raised, I stare back. “What?”
“If you’re going to read the paper, don’t waste your time on that fluff.” He emphasizes fluff like a curse word.
Somebody’s grizzly today. Staying up most of the night to watch TV likely didn’t help.
Against my better judgment, I poke the bear. “Yeah, because waking up to stock market figures would be a much more entertaining start to my day.” I spoon in a mouthful of oversweetened mush and hide a smirk by burying my face in the local news.
Dad gives his paper an irritated shake. “Some people are very interested in this year’s financial forecast. Like your brother.”
He just had to bring the newly coated golden child into the debate. “Tom probably has to write a paper about it. No, wait. It’s November. He’s just sucking up for another tuition infusion.”
Dad’s pottery mug drops like a coffee-spilling gavel. Note to self: do not taunt the grizzly before his morning coffee.
Dang it, Thea, why does your mouth always work faster than your brain?
Chastising myself has become a habit lately, as though I’m priming myself for what I deserve to be told out loud. Nevertheless, I muster my best I’m-an-idiot-but-still-your-little-princess expression.
Unlike some teenagers, I’m all too aware of my neurological gaps. My poorly connected frontal lobe is to blame—at least, that’s what Mom keeps telling me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I mess up more often than I’d like. If it weren’t for Mom’s medically derived empathy, I’d be more damaged than I am. Dad, however—well, he’s old school, and he believes every teenager needs a good lecture once in a while. Or, in my case, once a day. And they wonder why I’m anxious?
He clears his throat and with his authoritative voice booms, “If it were not for the Fenton men’s interest in—”
Mom’s quick footsteps come toward us from the rear hallway. Save me, Mom.
“Can we please try to pretend like we enjoy each other’s company this morning?” She whisks past us en route to our front entry, her lavender body spray offering a respite from Dad’s morning breath. “And you should be thankful she’s reading more than abbreviated slang and GIF quotes.”
He glares toward the hall. His forehead wrinkles. “GIF?”
“Graphic animations, Dad. Like social media’s way of showing emotions.” I push back my chair so I can get up and grab my phone from the charger. And it’s empty. “Has anyone seen my phone?” Please tell me I didn’t leave it in my bag again. It’ll be dead for sure.
“Your purse would be my guess.” Mom picks it up from the bench and holds it out to me.
Even if my phone isn’t there, I’ll take the momentary delay from Dad’s lecture. I almost skip to the hall to retrieve my bag. I dig through the jumble of loose papers and cosmetics and pull out the lifeless phone. “Thank you.” I lean over to kiss Mom’s cheek while she applies lipstick in the front mirror. “Oh, and thanks for the purr-fect wake-up call.”
“You can thank Woolie. It was all his idea. You forgot to put him in the basement again. He woke up everyone with his attempts to meow his way into your room.” She gives me a warning glance as she purses her lips at her reflection. “Be glad Tom’s alarm had already gone off; otherwise, he’d have thrown that poor cat out the window.”
“Sorry. I’ll try to remember to lock him up.” Odds are I’ll forget. Again. Which will cause my brother to ream me out next weekend, but I know that’s what she wants to hear.
I return to the kitchen, plug my cell into the communal charging station, and sit back down. The oven clock reads seven forty-three. Lots of time.
Dad’s mug is still stationed firmly on the table, so I fire my sweetest grin across at him. “Consider this bonding time, Dad. If I’d remembered to charge my cell, I wouldn’t even be reading The Ridge.”
He tries to avoid my tooth-and-gums expression, but I can tell the grizzly has become more polar, cold and quiet if kept at a distance. I pick up the paper and read out the headlines with exaggerated interest. “Oh look, Mom,” I call out, “‘New Hospital Expansion is a Go.’”
She murmurs something from the hallway.
“And here ya go, Dad. ‘Tax Scam Uncovered through Local Tip.’”
He glares over the top of his paper with the classic Fenton family furrow of annoyance. My own forehead tenses in return. Just because he is an accountant doesn’t mean all financial news and happenings are intriguing to him, but come on. I’m trying to engage with him. He could meet me halfway at least.
Mom jets into the kitchen with an unnecessary level of focus on attaching her magnetic name tag to her scrubs. Despite her makeup, dark circles skirt her eyes–—a sure sign of another sleepless night and unresolved argument with Dad. Without looking toward the table, she picks up her lunch bag and travel mug from the counter, then storms out to the front entry. No wonder Dad is crab-tastic.
My parents enjoy a less than ideal marriage, but on most days they hide their riffs and resentment from Tom and me. Or maybe it was more hidden from Grams. Since her funeral this past summer, our home no longer rests on eggshells. She was our foundation and moral compass, and now their marital spats seem to occur frequently and without check. Mom’s usual plastered-on enthusiasm has turned into a shoulder-hunched trudge. And Dad looks like part of him has disappeared. And judging from the odor wafting its way from him to me, it’s the part that cares about personal hygiene.
I continue to read with an artificial sweetness that rivals a preschooler’s plea for candy. “Oh, and this is big news for Ridgefield, ‘Fatal Fall from Southern Ridge.’” I stop. The content is anything but cheerful, so I read on silently instead. Teen girl loses life at Hawk Point Ridge. Slippery hiking trails and high winds noted. Identity withheld at family’s request.
Some promising small talk begins between my parents, but I no longer care. Fell from cliff’s edge at highest point.
“James, when is your first appointment today?”
“Uh, not until around ten,” Dad says.
“Can you drive Thea to school?”
Park gates were closed.
“She can walk.”
“I told her I could drive her last night, but I need to leave now.”
No witnesses.
“Well, she can leave now if she wants a ride.”
“Thea, your father is too lazy to drive you, even though he has the time. If you want a ride, we need to leave now.”